To all our friends who participated in the 88th Nakanoshima, Osaka, May Day: we would like to pay our respects to your fight for protection of workers’ rights, for peace and against war, and for international solidarity. The 27th Kyoto Regional May Day Executive Committee, sharing your determination to fight, will hold a rally and demo at Sanjo Kawara, 60 kilometers upstream from Nakanoshima. Our slogan is “Down with Abe’s Administration of War, Constitutional Revision, and Poverty! The fight connects on May Day!”

The Trump Administration, which forcibly bombed Syria, is now putting pressure on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea through joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises, creating a danger of war on the Korean Peninsula. The Abe Administration has taken this as a rare opportunity to proceed with building a new base in Henoko, expanding the base in Iwakuni, strengthening the U.S.-Japan joint strategic system in order to make war alongside America all over the world, and other ways of making Japan into a war state. With counterterrorism as the excuse, they plot to pass a conspiracy law so that they can suppress workers’ and the people’s struggles in their budding stages, and have announced that they will push on to their final endgame of changing the Constitution. They are also strengthening their moves toward restarting the nuclear power plants, such as having the Osaka High Court approve the restarting of the Takahama plant.

In order to “make Japan the easiest country for companies to do business in”, they also are continuing with attacks, centering on the gutting of the Labor Standards Law, that are aimed at tearing up by the roots the system of legal protection for workers. While promoting corporate tax cuts, they raise the expenses of Social Insurance and so on. Workers’ disposable income decreases, and life only becomes harder and harder.

The “trickle-down” theory, that if large corporations made a profit then many small and mid-size businesses would also see the benefits, has completely collapsed. Many workers at small and medium-sized companies, along with irregularly-employed workers, have seen their lives get worse until even their right to live is threatened. It is becoming clear that these men and women have no choice but to form unions and fight to protect their own lives.

Forcing us into war and poverty is the Abe Administration’s character. There is just one way to stop these attacks: solidarity with working people all over the world in labor movements, citizens’ movements, and unified people’s struggle. Your May Day Committee has called for international solidarity against war and for peace, and continued to defend the lives of mid- and small-business workers and irregular workers. We are certain you will keep moving forward in the fight. Let us affirm the spirit of May Day, “unity and solidarity among workers of all countries”, and struggle together for the realization of a society where working people can live securely.